South Asia

Nearly 200 people have been killed by a cyclone that ripped through Bangladesh and eastern India, while millions were marooned by flooding or forced to live in shelters. The death toll in Bangladesh rose to more than 130, newspapers and private television channels said. In India, officials said at least 64 people had died in West Bengal state. Cyclone Aila slammed into parts of coastal Bangladesh and eastern India on Monday, triggering tidal surges that forced people from their homes.

President Obama has taken painstaking care in the first days of his administration to calm the waters of international relations with promises of cooperation and respect for other nations. But his new envoy to South Asia has landed with a splash. Officials in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India have reacted uneasily to the appointment of Richard Holbrooke, a veteran diplomat nicknamed "the Bulldozer."

President Obama, emphasizing the use of vigorous diplomacy to settle seemingly intractable problems, named two Democratic heavyweights Thursday as administration envoys to two of the world's most troubled regions. Obama named former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Maine) as special envoy to the Middle East and former U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Just eight years ago, Sunil Pant wondered whether there was anyone else in this Himalayan land like him. To his engineer's mind, it was a riddle to be solved, and he methodically set about doing so. Pant planted himself in Katmandu's biggest park and handed out free condoms, seeking to help curb the rising incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. At the same time, through subtle conversations, he teased out an answer to his ulterior question: Were there other gays and lesbians out there?

August 12, 2007 | Yasmin Khan, Yasmin Khan is author of "The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan," recently published in Britain and due out later this year in the U.S.

In the 20th century, the great powers devised a new method for solving entrenched conflicts in faraway countries The tool kit was simple; it required only maps and pens. It appealed because it could be carried out relatively quickly by departing imperialists from their airy colonial offices, and it could be imposed from above on the peoples they formerly governed.

The death toll from two weeks of heavy monsoon rains across South Asia rose sharply to at least 521 as rescuers reached remote, flooded villages in northern India. The causes of death included electrocution, house collapses, snakebites and drowning. The storms across much of northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal have also left about 19 million people stranded, officials said.

INDIA SPLENDOR is being billed as one of the most ambitious privately funded South Asian festivals ever to take place in the U.S., with some 4,000 people expected to turn out over the next six days to experience the cultural offerings.

Helicopters dropped food to almost 2 million marooned Indian villagers as the death toll from unusually heavy monsoon rains and floods in South Asia rose to more than 225. The food drops to 2,200 villages cut off by flooding aimed to help desperate residents in the worst-hit eastern parts of India's Uttar Pradesh state. Umesh Sinha, the state relief commissioner, said nearly 280,000 acres of rice paddies had been destroyed.